


i want to tell you i'm sorry, but if you heard me, i'd have nothing to be sorry for

by needmesomepie



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: And a lot of pain, I'm Sorry, M/M, feel free to yell at me, i actively encourage it, like really fucking sorry, post monster billy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 05:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19419622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/needmesomepie/pseuds/needmesomepie
Summary: In a time of other worlds and lost memories, creatures that possess and nothing that makes sense, there shouldn't be anything shocking about waking up clueless as to how you ended up where you were.But there was no reason that it wouldn't bring with it a level of pain no being could ever fathom.





	i want to tell you i'm sorry, but if you heard me, i'd have nothing to be sorry for

**Author's Note:**

> you can't say i didn't pre warn you

He felt his foot tingling first, latched onto it, chased after the only feeling he’d felt in minutes, hours, days, he wasn’t sure. It hurt but he sought comfort in it, wanted to cry at the feeling of being able to feel again. His leg was next, it felt heavier, more constricted, like there was something weighing it down. He tried to move it, he couldn’t. He had feeling, the strength hadn’t quite caught up yet.

The feeling travelled up to his chest, settled uncomfortably over his heart, it beating slowly, painfully, like it knew something he didn’t, that something wasn’t right. He tried not to focus on it, let the pain shoot through his arm, stop at his hand. There was a weight to it, a heat he hadn’t felt anywhere else, a strength shooting up to his shoulders, spreading up his neck, hitting the pain he hadn’t remembered feeling in his head until now. It felt like something was pressing down through his flesh, reaching through to his skull, piercing his brain until he could think of nothing else. It was excruciating. All of a sudden, he didn’t know if he wanted to be able to feel again. But his mind started feeling fuzzy, as if there was something fighting to get through. He grabbed onto it, let it pull him through the haze of darkness in his mind. Then there was light, piercing, bright light that hurt, trying to fight its way through the eyelids he could now feel, could begin to move. He begun to open them, wanted to shield his eyes from the light, still couldn’t move his arms.

He didn’t recognise where he was, it was too white, too clean. Everything was still a little too fuzzy. The light still hurt, it was too direct, too close to his face.

The warmth from his hand disappeared, left him feeling lighter. He wanted it back, searched for it, still couldn’t move his hand. There were shadows in front of his eyes now, blocking the direction of the light. He was thankful for the shield, but scared. His vision was turning black again, he was going back.

Something echoed, too far to hear, too distant to catch, somewhere at the back of his mind. A brighter light in front of his eyes, closer, glaring. He tried to shut his eyes, cover them with his eyelids but he couldn’t. It was as if they were being forced open.

The echo sounded again, slightly louder this time, clearer, a male voice. Then again. And again. Clearer, stronger, more piercing each time. Over and over until he could pick out what they were saying. One voice. One word.

“Billy?”

They kept saying it. Then there was another voice. Less calm, more rushed. Shouting his name too. Beep after beep after incessant beep sounding to his right. It was like clockwork.

_Beep._

“Billy?”

_Beep._

“Billy?”

_Beep._

“Billy? Can you hear me?”

_Beep._

“Billy?”

Less fuzzy, more clarity with each word that was said.

Then he could see. He saw the mystery man standing in front of him, shining a light into his eyes. He saw the lights above him, lining the ceiling, letting out a gentle light that had seemed so painful just minutes before. Then he saw them, the owner of that other voice.

“Max?” he croaked out, coughing straight after. He shot his arm up to cover his mouth. He could move it.

He looked over. She was crying.

“Ma-“

“Try not to speak Billy, you’ve been through quite a lot.” That man, the doctor, interrupted him, looked at something on his head. And Billy let him, watched as he changed some sort of bandage somewhere above his eye line. He had no idea what was going on, why he was in hospital, why Max was crying, why some random doctor was telling him he’d been through a lot. The last thing he remembered was walking into an empty abandoned warehouse, getting shelter from the rain on a long walk. That had been that morning, he thought. But Max looked different, _he_ looked different. Too different for the sake of a stressful few hours.

“Max? What happened?” he asked, his voice hoarse, barely making a coherent sound.

Max didn’t answer, just cried harder.

He kept staring at her, willing her to answer, but she just cried, held her hand to her forearm. And then, out of nowhere, Billy saw something. Remembered something. _He watched his hand swipe at her arm, watched it bleed as she fell to the floor_. It felt like a memory, but not one of _his_. He’d never hurt her, they’d been getting on great, ever since that night at the Byers’.

“Max? Did I…?”

“No,” she said, “not the real you.”

And that just confused him more.

The doctor said something to him, he ignored it, spun his head back up to the ceiling.

And then it hit him, out of nowhere, the weight of 50 bricks smacking him full force in the face, winding him, leaving him motionless in the bed.

_There were rats, So many rats. And a voice, loud and piercing and aggressive. It was inside his head. It was telling him to do things. Unspeakable things. To hurt people. People he loved._

_He saw as he hit people, beat them to a pulp, pummel them into the ground until they were nothing but a mangled mess of unconsciousness on the floor._

_He watched as his body carried him, no control on his part, to the quarry, to where Max and her friends were. He watched as he attacked them, jumped between them all, hands flying in every direction, landing on Max’s arm, on Dustin’s cheek._

_He heard the yells of Steve from his right, the desperate sorry as he smashed his nail filled bat straight into his stomach. Saw the tears in his eyes as he turned on him, jumped forward, pushed Steve to the floor. He watched as his hands beat him, as his fists connected with his face over and over again. He heard the cries from around him, the yells to stop, felt as they all tried to pull him off. He saw the tears running down Steve’s face. Heard the sobs. The broken “I love you.”_

_He saw Steve’s face. Bloody and bruised and broken._

_He saw Steve lying there, still._

_He saw Steve._

_Steve._

He took a breath, the memories sending a jolt through his body, shocking him back into the present. He remembered everything. How he’d had no control, how he’d watched as he’d hurt and killed. There were tears streaming down his face as he turned to Max, he didn’t try to wipe them away.

“Max?” He asked, she didn’t look at him.

“Max? Where’s Steve?” He was panicking, his voice was desperate.

Max looked up at him, met his eye, put her hand over her mouth, cried harder.

“Max?” Billy was crying, “Where is he?”

She turned away, looked back down at her hands, shook her head.

A sob wracked through Billy’s body.

“Tell me I didn’t-“ another sob cut him off, his body unwilling to let him finish that sentence.

Max kept crying, had both of her hands over her face.

They hadn’t told anyone they’d been fooling around for a few months, but they both knew the whole group knew. Knew they saw through their lies about studying being the reason Billy’s car was always outside of Steve’s house.

“MAX? WHERE IS HE?” he shouted, desperate, tears flowing down his face in an unsteady and disturbed stream.

She just shook her head again. He knew what she meant. Didn’t want to believe it.

He started ripping all of the wires out of his body, ignored the warning beeps sounding incessantly from every machine he’d been hooked up to, the yells of his doctor to stay exactly where he was.

He ran for the door, ignored the pain shooting up his leg from apparently another injury, felt a hand on his wrist, pulling him back. He turned around, saw Max looking at him, eyes pleading, hurt.

She shook her head again and Billy froze, broke down, collapsed to the floor, stopped repressing the tears from falling from his eyes. Pain shot through his heart, stamped at it, ripped it apart. He saw his hands in front of him, hated them, couldn’t stop seeing what they’d done, couldn’t stop seeing Steve’s bloody face lying in front of him as this thing had used his body to beat the life painfully out of him.

He punched the door, knew he deserved the pain that embedded itself in his knuckles.

He barely felt Max’s arms wrap around him, engulf him in a hug. He tried to push her off but she embraced him tighter, cried onto his shoulder.

And they sat there, a collapsed, distraught mess on the floor, crying into each other’s shoulders. Max for the loss of a friend. Billy at the loss of a something more than friend, a something that was never going to be given a name, a someone that was never going to be there by his side when he woke up again.

Billy watched it, over and over again, his fists pummelling into Steve, sat there on that floor, Max’s arms stretched around his body. He knew he hadn’t killed him, that it wasn’t really his fault. But it had been his hands, his movements, his body. The memories were his.

He had to live with it. He had to live without Steve. They all did.

And it was all Billy’s fault.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry
> 
> please love me
> 
> or come scream and yell and tell me how much you hate me on [tumblr](https://lemonflavouredspatula.tumblr.com/), i deserve it


End file.
